As I predicted, the ‘Russian spy ring’ story was a total dud. Of course, ‘Sexy Natasha’ was quite a number so everyone had to have her face in the news! But it was a non-story. On the other hand, putting CENTCOM into the hands of a total butcher is big news. China exerts its own sovereignty and teaches Google a sharp lesson on who is boss while the IMF praises China for busting the rising real estate bubble there via the old tools of forcing banks to hold larger capital securities and not cheat by using the Derivatives Beast as ‘insurance’ on real estate defaults. Meanwhile, in the US, the most expensive houses are going into default faster than lower priced housing.
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ΩΩRussian spies land in Vienna to be exchanged for four pardoned agents | World news | guardian.co.uk: the neocons never sleep! They simultaneously prevent the FBI from arresting the army of Israeli Jewish spies that run amok throughout our entire military and industrial systems while constantly poking at Russia and China in hopes of relaunching their beloved ‘us versus them’ Cold War games. This way, the military machine can continue to swell in size and the public can be confused about who is really sinking our economic ship.
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ΩΩOf course, the Russians and Chinese very definitely spy on us! But so do our ‘allies’! Our ‘allies’ also are quite content with reaming our economy out so that it will eventually collapse. The black/white polar world of the warmongers is very dear to their dark little hearts. They need to have us reflexively hating big empires, not tiny, barely armed countries. The mighty Wurlitzer media machine needs serious ‘enemies’ not rag-tag civilian fighters to hate. Ho Chi Minh had a real air force, air defenses, a small navy and a very large mostly modern army when we fought him. And lost.
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ΩΩBut since the Vietnam war, we mostly fight only disarmed, weak dictators like Saddam or barely armed civilians like the Taliban tribes of Afghanistan. We now specialize in killing barely armed civilians, usually picking them off using our air force. We rejoice in that they can’t fight back. But the Pentagon is nervous because this doesn’t justify vast military spending on weapons. The warmongers here need real armies, navies and air forces to fight! This is the only reason why the ‘Russian spy’ story ever saw the light of day.
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ei: Protesters greet Netanyahu in Washington as Israel expands settlements
Hundreds of activists in Washington, DC demonstrated outside the White House to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit on Tuesday, 6 July. As protesters held signs calling on the US government to end military aid to Israel, Netanhayu met with US President Barack Obama in a meeting characterized by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as “empty theatrics.”
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ΩΩGetting even hundreds of Americans willing to take on AIPAC in DC is amazing. As per usual, the mainstream media covered up this story. The illusion that we all support the present religious/ethnic warfare introduced by the Zionists 100 years ago, is most important that we believe all Americans are Zionists. The refusal to even mention stories like this one is one of the most odious facets of the mainstream media. I get this sort of news via the Electronic Infantata.
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ΩΩThe war news continues to darken. Anger about Mc Chrystal’s delicacy in trying to prevent excessive civilian casualties has been replaced with the same sort of brutal indifference to Muslim deaths and the brutal butchery of children and women in barely armed communities we see in Palestine. This bully-boy sort of ‘fighting’ which involves mass murder of trapped civilians is destroying our moral sense of pride. That is, instead of being strong, honest and forthright, we are now sneaky, creepy and cruel.
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Thirty-eight Predator and Reaper drones have crashed during combat missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and nine more during training on bases in the U.S. — with each crash costing between $3.7 million and $5 million. Altogether, the Air Force says there have been 79 drone accidents costing at least $1 million each.
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Accident rates are dropping, but the raw numbers of mishaps are increasing as use of the aircraft skyrockets, according to Air Force safety experts….The drones flew 185,000 hours over Afghanistan and Iraq in 2009, more than triple the number of hours flown in 2006. The Air Force expects that number to grow to 300,000 hours this year.
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ΩΩOver $100 million lost due to crashes and another $79 million in accidents equals nearly $200 million in losses. But these are not losses for the Daddy Warbucks of the military/industrial/political complex! Our Senators and Congress critters often make lots of loot off of the military/industrial business! So they don’t mind these losses, these are actually profits. The more equipment that is destroyed=more loot for the producers who merrily make more stuff to be wrecked.
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ΩΩIn all military matters, bean counters must do an examination of cost of operations. In the case of the US, if we count the cost of the robot assassin equipment, bombs and personnel involved and compare it to the cost of the ‘enemy’…in this case, all civilians since the Taliban have no army, navy or air force or even a government…we can see if this is an economically sane war or a war that is destroying our own finances faster than we can kill off civilians. That is, we are spending over a million dollars per civilian murdered in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The facilities we are bombing at great expense are mud huts or tents or caves. These cost the civilians we are fighting about $100 to replace while we spend over $10 million we spent on destroying these cheap and fragile hovels, to keep the killing system going.
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ΩΩWhen we dropped bombs on civilians in Europe and Asia over the years, we destroyed extremely expensive infrastructure. So the cost/reward coefficient was fairly balanced. When Clinton bombed Serbia, the scale was still sort of balanced even though the people we were attacking were, as usual, mostly civilians. The degrading of the cost ratio balance was clearly seen in the Vietnam War whereby we spent most of our money for the air force bombing jungles, straw huts and mud paddies.
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ΩΩThe Vietnam War set the US firmly on the road to ruin. The economic damage caused by this wild spending continues today as the Pentagon was allowed to spend totally recklessly. I remember when the ‘privatization’ game began: the Pentagon claimed they would save money this way. Instead, military spending has shot through the roof and now menaces the entire nation with the threat of bankruptcy.
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ΩΩLike with free trade, privatization has been a total disaster easily seen but can’t be stopped because our Congress loves the loot. This continuous looting expedition being run against our own economy is very much like the one that devastated ancient Rome. Our Founding Fathers feared this would happen and so they forbade a standing army. Which was dumped pretty quickly, I might add.
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‘Fun to Shoot People’ General Named as New CENTCOM Commander — News from Antiwar.com
In 2005, then Lt. Gen. Mattis spoke of his “fun” experience in Afghanistan at a forum in San Diego, describing it as “a hell of a hoot.” After laughter from soldiers in the audience Mattis went on to declare “it’s fun to shoot some people.”
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Mattis continued to elaborate. “You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil,” adding “guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyways. So its a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.”…Gen. Peter Pace said of Mattis that “his actions and those of his troops clearly show that he understands the value of proper leadership and the value of human life.” Mattis’ most recent deployment at the time was to Iraq, where he took part in both battles of Fallujah, which left large numbers of Iraqi civilians dead.
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ΩΩFallujah was a total war crime. Completely a war crime. It was very similar to the IDF attacks on civilians in Beirut and Gaza. It was pure bully boy tactics which opened the floodgates to tons of US criminal actions in Iraq which still stand as obvious and odious war crimes. Note how this yahoo is promoted while acting this way! He was not forced to resign after making this disgusting speech.
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ΩΩThis rancid speech also illustrates another problem with becoming bullies: the US shows scant to no bravery in ‘battle’ since most of these battles are totally lopsided. Most of the time, the US chooses the sneakiest, most technological assassination machines to do the dirty work while our troops hide out thousands of miles away, living in luxury or flying high in the sky knowing there is zero anti-aircraft retaliation and with cold calculation, we kill entire families down below. This is NOT ‘bravery’, this is murder.
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ΩΩTypically, the people killing civilians this way are proud of it and like to talk about how our ‘enemies’ are ‘cowards’. But on any scale of cowardice, the true cowards are the heavily armed Americans. We look like mud colored turtles up close covered with technological wonders while our opponents, the ‘freedom fighters’ (this is what they see themselves as) are wearing zero armor and have almost no weapons but have tons and tons and tons of courage.
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James Mattis – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Nickname | “Chaos” “Warrior Monk” “Mad Dog Mattis”[1] |
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ΩΩThis general certainly is crazy. He is also definitely a creature of chaos. He is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. That is, the Zionist game plan of the Christians is for the Apocalypse to happen. That is, we, the US, working alongside the Israeli Jewish nuclear arsenal, will kill most Muslims via mass civilian murder using various excuses. The bin Laden plan is the same only he expects the US and Israel to go bankrupt together (Israel being a total leech on the US) and Russia and China will nuke the US and destroy the Beast.
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.Israel is working very, very hard to destroy US alliances that matter and kill off our true protection systems: Turkey wants Israel apology | Reuters. Obama was forced to kow tow to Bibi and in turn, Bibi was forced by the rest of the world to let in a few more chocolate bars and toys for the starving children of Gaza. Hitler often tried to use the Jews he put in ghettos to get things for Germany. The Zionists in Palestine thought this was a great way to force Britain to support their colonization desires.
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ΩΩInstead of inviting the Prime Minister of Turkey to the White House, Obama was forced to host this hideous man who will return the favor by cooking up some more insults to pour onto the VP and POTUS heads. There is no bravery in our own government. The Muslims see this and look down on us. The only way to win ‘hearts and minds’ in any of the Muslim lands we are vainly trying to control is to denounce Zionism and repudiate Jewish ethnic cleansing.
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ΩΩInstead, Bomber Obama is promoting butchers who have sneering contempt of Muslim insurgent civilians. This is a downhill slope that grows ever steeper. I seriously doubt the mainstream media will go after General Mad Dog Mattis, the Chaos Warrior Monk like they leaped upon poor Mc Chrystal.
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ΩΩIsrael Settlements Cover 42 Percent Of West Bank: step by ruthless step, the Apartheid government confiscates what is left of Palestinian lands. This was the plan launched back in 1902 by the Zionists. The US could stop this but won’t. This was not discussed at the meeting where Obama kissed Bibi’s ass.
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Israeli judge: Learn from Nazis – Israel News, Ynetnews
“We must learn from the Nazi tactics,” Retired Israeli Judge Hadassa Ben-Itto said recently during a conference discussing ways to improve the State of Israel’s PR efforts in the world. The meeting, which was held last week in the English capital, was attended by some 150 senior Jewish legal experts.
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Ben-Itto said during the conference that Israel should adopt the tactics used by the Nazis after they distributed the Protocols of the Elders of Zion: Refusing to reach a compromise and continuing their battle in the courts although they had no proof of the protocols. “I thought about it, about our ‘hasbara’, and nothing is working because our story is complicated and the world is used to a sound bite,” she explained.
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ΩΩThis story is in Israeli news but not US news. This is how the Jews talk with each other about how to run the entire planet’s information systems so that it supports neo-Nazi positions. The complicated story the Jews want to tell happen to be nothing but rank lies. The need to have total control is most important because you can’t be Pravda (Russian word: truth) which is all lies if people can compare the real news with the fake news. The main thing the Zionists want is simple censorship: only news that supports their programs will be allowed. The US is run mostly this way but the internet is slowly breaking the grip of the propagandists.
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Google Wins License Renewal in China After Modifying Website – Bloomberg.com
Google risked getting expelled from the world’s largest Internet market after the government objected to the practice that was adopted in March. The operator of the world’s most-used search engine earlier said in January it was no longer willing to comply with Chinese government regulations for Web sites to self-censor content.
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“This is a reasonable move by the government,” said Jake Li, an Internet analyst at Guotai Junan Securities in Shenzhen. “Google has brought itself into compliance with regulations, so there’s no good reason to deny them the license.
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ΩΩChina censors the news. In the US, AIPAC censors the news. The difference is, AIPAC censors the news on behalf of a foreign government whereas China censors the news on behalf of the Chinese government. This is a critical difference. In the US, we are falling off a financial and political cliff that is very steep and will end with us all bankrupt and chaos at home including starvation, the splintering of the US into hostile camps and the loss of sovereignty. Meanwhile, despite the loss of freedoms in China, at least their country is growing stronger and healthier and has bright prospects.
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ΩΩGoogle wanted to fight with China because they wanted to support ‘freedom movements’ within China. The Tibetans, for example, the Dalai Lama himself, openly talk about preventing other Chinese citizens from moving into Tibet! The same liberals who howl like banshees at Arizona for fighting off illegal foreign aliens is quite content with the Dalai Lama’s open statements that he wants to lock out fellow Chinese citizens from Tibet and make it ‘autonomous’. Imagine if say, Utah, were to declare themselves a religious and ethnic autonomous state and eject all ‘outsiders’?
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ΩΩI predicted Google would lose this fight with the Chinese government and they did. They need to make a profit and won’t make one if they are locked out of China. China firmly believes in sovereign power and government controls that lead to a stronger, not weaker China. This is why China continues to move upwards. The recent spat with Japan that led to sudden successful strikes against all the Japanese auto factories in China shows that the government can do as it pleases and it pleased the leadership to allow worker rebellions against foreign powers.
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IMF praises Asia’s steps to cool real estate – MarketWatch
Concerns of overheated real estate markets in Asia are diminishing, though regional authorities need to be on guard against destabilizing developments, the International Monetary Fund said Wednesday….”Prudential measures appear to be taking hold,” the IMF said in its World Economic Outlook. “The growth of real estate transaction values has eased and the share of real estate loans in new bank lending is also falling, although further monitoring of developments is warranted.”
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ΩΩThe IMF was mostly silent while the Derivatives Beast mated with the Japanese ZIRP carry trade to spawn a global housing bubble that is now annihilating many economic systems. But China noted this mess and took strong measures to nip it. I noted this last year and every time China raised the reserve rates, I said, this was why they did it. They weren’t ordered to do this. The government WANTED to do this and did it, itself. A certain sign of sovereign power which should impress all of us.
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The average beneficiary of the Obama administration’s flagship homeowner-assistance program owes their mortgage lender more than $1.50 for every dollar their home is worth, which means they fall into the stratum of homeowners most likely to simply walk away from their mortgages, recent government data show.
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This little-noticed statistic was disclosed in a June 24 report by the Government Accountability Office. Citing government data collected through mid-April, the report found that even homeowners who receive lower monthly payments through the administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program are still struggling “under water,” meaning they owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.
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ΩΩWe have too much debt. We have too much desire to live beyond our means. There is a huge movement afoot which wants to have infinite debt paid off by issuing infinite zeros on infinite pieces of paper and this is a huge temptation to our deep in debt country. Since the military wants wild spending, the public wants wild spending, we get wild spending despite the mess we are in. Alas, the only solution is to live within our means and this means protecting ourselves from trade deficits and the trade deficits are a bleeding ulcer, a cancer eating up our economic system.
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ΩΩObama, as usual, chose to not understand this business and was told by his owners (he is a slave, not a free man) that more free trade, more open borders, more aliens flooding into the US will be the best solution. So he picked a bunch of internationalist clowns to deal with our trade problems and their solution is obvious: more of the same sh*t.
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Walking Away From Million-Dollar Mortgages – NYTimes.com
More than one in seven homeowners with loans in excess of a million dollars are seriously delinquent, according to data compiled for The New York Times by the real estate analytics firm CoreLogic….Though it is hard to prove, the CoreLogic data suggest that many of the well-to-do are purposely dumping their financially draining properties, just as they would any sour investment.
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ΩΩThe rich are walking away from investments that have no hope of paying off. But I know some of these people who are losing their expensive homes (ahem)—often, they boasted to me back when things were going great, putting huge debts on the family mansion meant more money for investments! And when things go bad, they lose their homes. I have watched this happen over and over again. I warn everyone: do NOT use your own dwelling for this purpose! You have to live somewhere so pay off all home debts and live safe, if not so obviously ‘rich’.
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The Fix – Immigration emerging as 2010 issue?
Polling on the Arizona law specifically falls in Republicans’ favor, although broader data suggests a public deeply divided on immigration. In the latest Washington Post/ABC poll, 58 percent expressed support for the Arizona law — including 42 percent who were strongly supportive — while 41 percent opposed it.
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But in that same survey, which was conducted in early June, nearly six in ten (57 percent) of people supported allowing illegal immigrants to stay in the country if they paid a fine and met other citizenship requirements — a major plank of past attempts to offer a comprehensive immigration solution.
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ΩΩWell over half, nearly 60% of Americans want secure borders and no illegal aliens. They are willing to legalize present illegals (like last time we did this!) but not let in more. Legal aliens are useless to most employers so this won’t probably happen. The main thing here is, since only the GOP is hot on the illegal alien issue, they will sweep back into power again. Even though most of the illegal alien problems grew much worse while the GOP was in power under Bush!
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ΩΩThe main thing is, the Democrats are hogtied by the left that seems to hate sovereignty and the idea of ‘patriotism’ and the money men at the top of the DNC like the cheap labor and lack of US borders and of course, AIPAC pushed for and loves divided loyalties and dual citizenship which destroys this nation. So the DNC is doomed.
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ΩΩHere is a typical editorial from the left concerning all of this and this editorial shows how useless most liberals are when it comes to saving our nation from economic and political destruction: William Blum: Some Thoughts on “Patriotism” Written on July 4th
I was once asked after a talk: “Do you love America?” I answered: “No”. After pausing for a few seconds to let that sink in amidst several nervous giggles in the audience, I continued with: “I don’t love any country. I’m a citizen of the world. I love certain principles, like human rights, civil liberties, democracy, an economy which puts people before profits.”….”Pledges of allegiance are marks of totalitarian states, not democracies,” says David Kertzer, a Brown University anthropologist who specializes in political rituals. “I can’t think of a single democracy except the United States that has a pledge of allegiance.”
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ΩΩMy ancestors came here, fleeing the King of England. They fought a revolution. It turns out that Jefferson wrote in ‘subjects’ in the Declaration of Independence and then suddenly changed it to ‘citizen’. This was very significant. The concept of ‘citizenship’ lies at the heart of any sovereign nation that is a democracy! It is most important.
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ΩΩThis poor leftist sap, like so many others, claims to be a ‘citizen’ of the world. This is IMPOSSIBLE. There is no ‘world tax’ nor is there a ‘world government’ that is a true government. The UN isn’t a government, the Security Council nixes that pretty thoroughly. And the Security Council is all individual countries with nuclear bombs. On the left, there is great paranoia about a ‘world government’ which is very silly since many leftists like to preen themselves about being citizens of a world government (you can’t be a vague ‘citizen’ of nothing). What the left wants is to roam about the planet under the aegis of the US empire, doing as they please.
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ΩΩThey may claim they are not doing this but they use US dollars to travel which is our sovereign money, and they do this as Americans so they get automatic protection except where civilians are actively fighting our military. There is no such thing as a ‘world citizen’ since this implies RESPONSIBILITY which are not to the vague ‘world’ but rather, are actually manifestation of US imperial power. So it is very silly to say, ‘I am a citizen of the world’ when we can’t do this.
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ΩΩThe attitude problem here is obvious to me: the US had a socialist write the oath because we let in a total flood of immigrants mostly from Europe but some from Asia and people here became worried that wars, ethnic tensions and divided loyalties would destroy our immigrant nation so this was the ingenious solution! It is NOT ‘fascist’ but rather, it is a break with the past. One that is being destroyed rapidly as immigrants keep citizenship of their home countries and cease being total Americans. This will tear our country apart in the future, like Yugoslavia.
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ΩΩFederal Judge In Boston Rules Gay Marriage Ban Unconstitutional: Last of all, this is great news. Congratulations, all gay people who want full and true civil rights. Only a government can enforce or grant these and we gain these by voting and organizing and petitioning our sovereign government and of course, educating our fellow citizens so they finally accept the idea of full civil rights for all people. The gay battle for basic human and civil rights has been very long, hard and difficult. I am very, very pleased to see some progress coming along but as always, the Pentagon is fighting this off and being very uncooperative just as the generals refused to integrate the military during WWII and the Korean War which the commies used as propaganda points against us.
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ΩΩGays deserve the same rights and privileges as other sexual orientations. Gays are good for the economy, good for communities and good for our culture. The more freedoms they have, the better things are for the rest of us! Seriously! I am very pleased to see progress here.
Fascinating online book on the history of zionism, if anyone has a few spare hours to fill..
http://iamthewitness.com/books/Douglas.Reed/The.Controversy.of.Zion/
“Jefferson wrote in ‘subjects’ in the Declaration of Independence and then suddenly changed it to ‘citizen’. ”
Yes, I grew up as a citizen. What a great country it was then in spite of politics. Thanks to the “Reagan Revolution” I’m not a citizen anymore, but rather a “consumer”. (Sounds like Kissinger’s “useless eater”.)
Will the “individual” known as a corporation eventually be the only legitimate “citizen” considered under Constitutional Law enforcing civil protections? We’ve already seen labor reduced to global commodity and arbitrage. And we know the corporatist leaning of the Supreme Court in its’ present make-up.
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ELAINE; Absolutely correct! Yes, our ‘citizenship’ is being withdrawn while the former virtues and values of this precious thing has been transferred to corporations…INTERNATIONAL corporations using tax havens to avoid responsibility.
Israel is definitely a infomercial of US pride… and the US spys on people too, just not enough to prevent paramilitary insurgency… In fact i would almost believe that our counter inteligence agency CREATES paramilitary insurgency around the world as the new normal of force paradigm… from drug dealers to warlords, there is no politics only spys/assasins/kidnappers to confront the worlds ‘problems’… weird
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but patriotism runs deep… now that we KNOW that oil drilling in the gulf is impractical by ANY measure of failure analysis, people are proud that the executive has little recourse to administer the problem… economic failure is healthy to every educated moron
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BOPs are rated as 1/100,000 failure rate… THEY ONLY GOT 3-5% OF THAT RELIABILITY… human interaction should be BAKED INTO THE CAKE of practical reliability, not to mention the well bore… BOPs DO NOT WORK as advertised any better than skimmers and booming… human error is obvious to every educated moron
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http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-53565441845289277&q=nuclear+fision&total=185&start=10&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
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cities in the clouds
“When we dropped bombs on civilians in Europe and Asia over the years, we destroyed extremely expensive infrastructure. So the cost/reward coefficient was fairly balanced.”
Elaine, Our bombing of Dresden, Germany in WWII was nothing more than killing for the sake of killing. 100,000 Germans, almost all civilians, were incinerated. Many thousands of them were refugees from German cities with miltary targets.
America hasn’t changed.
– The “Trail of Tears” forced march of 40,000 Cherokee Indians from the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina to the barren plains of Oklahoma.
– The “rounding up and corraling” of the Sioux Nation in the Dakota Territory when gold was discovered there.
– The “concentrated encampment” of Americans of Japanese descent during WWII.
However, as always, history is written by the victors.
Surely you aren’t supprised that an american general is crazy. All american generals are CRAZY.
Do you know what goes on in the upper eschilons of the US army?
There was a documentary on british tv about eight years ago about the ‘loonie generals’ in the us army called “The Men Who Stare At Goats” (because they think they can kill them with their psychic powers, though apparently they only work with hampsters now). Its reciently been turned into a film with george clooney, i wonder do people realize that the film is actually a true storey.
Anyway here’s a link to the orginal documentary
Sorry to rant about this again, but i discovered a shorter (only 8min) version. It’s a premo to the film, but it’s better coz you get lots of interviews with generals and majors from the army and get a real insight the magical beliefs in the army’s top brass. Your tax dollars at work….
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ELAINE: There is a lot of magical thinking in the CIA, too.
This news does not surprise me. After I saw a headline that General Patreus Maximus would be in charge of the Afghan theatre, I knew it was all over for the civilians there.
Here is what he said (headlines):
“Civilian and military components to be merged, cooperation not optional.”
“Patreus rejects defeatism in Afghanistan, says we are here to win.”
Great.
This is the point where I start to wonder what America will look like ten years from now, and whether there will even be a country named “America”.
Charlie, a Florida vendor, had a few comments regarding vendor sales. From Charlie …
Hello Mish,
“That’s all folks” is correct and right on the money.
I have a vending business here in Florida. I service manufacturing and many general businesses. All are laying off workers. I have machines that were taking in 100.00 plus dollars a week that are now doing only 5.00 per week.
This drop off is now much worse than in autumn of 2008.
Mish, please tell people to save their money because hell is on the way.
Charlie
http://tinyurl.com/d8q6j
On Turkey,
Israel attacked a Turkish vessel on international waters.
The vessel is considered Turkish soil.
Turkey is a member of Nato…
What was the purpose of Nato again?
Is it wise to get rid of your only muslim friend?
“The Parties of NATO agreed that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all. Consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence will assist the Party or Parties being attacked, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”
I R LuV bIG oIl as much as the next guy
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You have some things backward, Elaine. The fear of One World Government is a terror of the religious right, not the left. Patriotism in its extreme form is just another destructive form of idolatry. On the throne seat, sits the nation state, instead of God.
A pledge of allegiance is a test of conformity and orthodoxy; and nations sometimes use things like these, along with loyalty oaths (the next step) to keep people in line. I don’t understand the fascination you have, at times, for these trappings of authoritarianism.
The left is intrinsically anti-authoritarian, right down to the molecular level; but you are always going on about how the left is unpatriotic, and this is a distortion you constantly repeat. Love of this country, as created by its founders, ought to be the love of its values, its humanity, its practice of fairness, and its aspiration for justice and overall fidelity to due process of law and the purpose of its Constitution.
Love of country on a level like this, is actually worthwhile; but oaths and totemistic loyalty and flag-waving, and chants from the primitive pit of our being, “USA! USA! USA!” in a world where the USA is churning up corpses at the bloody frontiers of its empire, ought to give a thoughtful person pause.
I believe that 60% of Americans want secure borders; but I also believe that this majority is also in favor of laws that don’t discriminate against minorities, with whom we all must share our communities. And I don’t find Mr. Blum’s musings to be typical of the left at all. World government, if it is ever to exist, is a long way off; and each nation is, first of all, responsible for putting its own house in order.
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ELAINE: I have organized on the left much of my life. And now cannot do this because I think. The lock-step belief systems of the left is every bit as draconian and often stupid as the far right. Very much so. Hard to see this when one is trapped within it.
‘Pledges of allegiance’ are the outcome of an OPEN SOCIETY that LET IN FOREIGNERS. A closed system doesn’t need this, everyone is the same ethnic or religious group so why have it? The left should embrace this, not hate this. It is pure schizophrenia.
During the Vietnam War, in San Francisco, I was at a key meeting where I passionately said ‘We MUST wave the flag as hard as the right!’ And I volunteered my own big flag for the head of the demonstration. This paid off, big time.
The solution the left has for our borders is basically nothing. This means the left is going to shrink back to a minority party and the corporate half of the DNC will move to the GOP. Sort of like Japan today which has no real left.
Colin
July 9, 2010 at 7:36 pm
Surely you aren’t supprised that an american general is crazy. All american generals are CRAZY.
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at least somebodys trying to ‘feel out’ native insanity… dude, i can walk through walls big deal… big walls
“I don’t make much of a distinction between patriotism and nationalism. Some people equate patriotism with allegiance to one’s country and government or the noble principles they supposedly stand for, while defining nationalism as sentiments of ethno-national superiority. However defined, in practice the psychological and behavioral manifestations of nationalism and patriotism are not easily distinguishable, indeed feeding upon each other.”
-William Blum
Try as I might I can find nothing to object to here. Let’s try another…
“[A] set of beliefs taught to each generation in which the Motherland or the Fatherland is an object of veneration and becomes a burning cause for which one becomes willing to kill the children of other Motherlands or Fatherlands. … Patriotism is used to create the illusion of a common interest that everybody in the country has.”
-Howard Zinn
I’m really trying Elaine but again no dice. Howard, bless him, hits the nail on the head.
“Patriotism” perhaps rivals capitalism as the greatest con job ever foisted upon humanity. There is no such thing as a “national interest” or “foreign policy” for these are mere fictions that disguise the true state of affairs in ANY nation-state. The only policy that matters is that of domestic policy, meaning those actions of government, both domestically or abroad, which best serve the interests of whatever elite factions are running the executive at the time. That is all.
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ELAINE: So, no patriotism= SERFDOM. Look, you have to have something. Nothing is nothing. The promise that we all be atomized people wandering about the planet is an ILLUSION. We get to wander precisely because we have nation states organizing things. If you read about travel before the concept of nation states, it is a dark history indeed and was directly why imports from say, Asia, cost a fortune in Europe before 1800 AD.
Basically, the only way one could travel was by being heavily armed in a large convoy or caravan!
The romantic idea that we can sort of go gadding about, safe and sound, is an illusion. In places with no sense of government or country like say, SOMALIA, are extremely dangerous to visit or live.
My neighbor, Jim Channon, was that agent of change (still is) at a unique point in time.
Losing the Vietnam war had left the US Army disoriented, demoralized and disliked by a large number of the population.
Jim stood up and creatively conceived of an armed force that was a positive force calling it the First Earth Battalion.
The higher ups in command were desperate to reinvent the Army and make it whatever it could be. They gave Jim the order to go where no Leutinent Colonel had ever been.
Jim orbited around the human potential movement and was able to escape the gravitational pull of the regimented mind-set of the military.
Jim was just the unique character to pursue the quest for an enlightened Defensive Military force.
He envisioned a light ninja-like military force those real obligation was to humanity and the planet.
Jim is a visionary who still is engaged in the pursuit of positive change, and I am proud to have him as a neighbor.
Coldtype
July 10, 2010 at 2:16 am
“Patriotism” perhaps rivals capitalism as the greatest con job ever foisted upon humanity. There is no such thing as a “national interest” or “foreign policy” for these are mere fictions that disguise the true state of affairs in ANY nation-state. The only policy that matters is that of domestic policy, meaning those actions of government, both domestically or abroad, which best serve the interests of whatever elite factions are running the executive at the time. That is all.
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regimented nationalism and patriotism are human nature… who will protect the food we will, who will protect the space we will, who will protect the highways we will, who will protect the entertainment we will… its not some nebulous idea foisted upon a unsuspecting public, rather duty and pride… politicians spend money and have power that does not make patriotism crude
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maybe politics is a natural weakness of mankinds ability to recognize problems… at some point somebody IS in charge/or SHOULD be
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2366290,00.asp
Blizzard Sounds the Retreat on Real Forum Names
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“Possibly the worst idea in the history of bad ideas,” wrote another.
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MAY THE FAKENESS OF INTERNET AND ROCK AND ROLL LIVE FOREVER
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WOO HOOOOOOO! any body here having a good time
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/presenting-wall-worry-50-ugliest-facts-about-us-economy
#13) U.S. law enforcement authorities claim that there are now over 1 million members of criminal gangs inside the country. These 1 million gang members are responsible for up to 80% of the crimes committed in the United States each year.
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and we will sue Arizona… to let an Army of zealots run our streets and launder money… if you have never lived in a ‘mexican speaking US city’ let me tell you… these people dont seek refuge, only like minded theft… EXAMPLE: my apartment manager had kids in his house as i came to pay my rent, they told me they robbed a Pizza Hut guy when and how… that was my friend/ex roomate
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just kept my mouth shut and paid my bill
an’ Pasco is still part of a regional highway hub in Washington… same as ever, lucky mexicans
@Joseppi
“Jim is a visionary who still is engaged in the pursuit of positive change, and I am proud to have him as a neighbor.”
interesting nice to find a source … does he find the documentaries inaccurate? … does he actually believe he can stop a goat’s heart by staring at them?
My impression i got from the documentary was that the First Earth Battlion was not involved in the goat / telepathy / spoon bending buisness … or where they at the heart of it? This seemed to be the ideas of Stublebine. The documentary wasnt clear on wether or not they (Jim and Stublebine) even knew about eachother / or where working together.
Colin,
Of course the movie, not sure about the documentaries since I haven’t seen them, was a rather distorted representation of the history of the Earth First Battalion.
Channon can be described as a visionary social architect and has plenty of work out there on the internet – youtube – google. I’m sure you can find a way to contact him and he will more than likely answer any question you have.
ZBrez said, “We want a more controlled society … dominated by an elite unrestrained by traditional values.”
ZBrez is a traitor.
John Kennedy asked, “Not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”
John Kennedy is a Patriot.
Patriotism comes from the heart of traditional values.
@EMS
Appeals to sentimentality and coerced, outward shows of loyalty to the nation, are no substitute for the shared values and moral fiber that holds a community (or a country) together. There is a psychic underpinning that connects sentimentality with the release inhibition on the dark side. And the pledge of allegiance is a tool that’s been used to bully people into submission. And litigation has had to be pursued, in court, in order to prevent school districts from using it as a bludgeon, to hold over the heads of students.
Look at the new president. Look at every president in recent years. They are all dripping with the sickly sweetness of outward patriotism: the corny, ornamental, outward show and conformity. They have endless layers of this falsity. It is a mask for crime. It is a layer of delusion that allows leaders of nations free reign, to fire up base instincts, and unleash hate against target groups.
What is happening at the border is the result of the programming of impoverishment. The empire’s policy is the fundamental moving force behind migrations like these. NAFTA led directly to this, but not NAFTA alone. Our country’s War On Drugs is also responsible for the chaos that is pushing the migration of people from Mexico.
You also made a factually incorrect statement, Elaine, when you wrote “On the left, there is great paranoia about a ‘world government’ which is very silly since many leftists like to preen themselves about being citizens of a world government (you can’t be a vague ‘citizen’ of nothing).”
No, the right–in particular, the religious right– is terrified by the idea of a World Government. The left are not paranoid about this. Some lefties think it would work; others are doubtful that it is a practical or likely outcome. Citizenship on the left is expressed in their history of activism in this country.
So complete was Obama’s identification with Israel yesterday that he actually referred to Israel as “us” before correcting himself:
“We strongly believe that, given its size, its history, the region that it’s in, and the threats that are leveled against us—against it, that Israel has unique security requirements.”
http://www.countercurrents.org/dreyfuss100710.htm
Never confuse fake patriotism with the real thing.
ah, vienna. was there last weekend for the afternoon to check out Hofburg, seat of Hapsburg power for 6 centuries.
you would have enjoyed their silverware collection on display. the royals seem to melt their collection down once a century or so to make coins and pay for wars…
best,
ken
I have six silver spoons from 1680 that belonged to the Steele clan (upper-upper class). This is all the silver left from back then, the rest is gone with the wind.
I have a silver tea pot from 1820 and a copper kettle from 1730 also which survived. And a sheet woven by my great grandmother. Not much, eh? Things come and go.
The castles of the Hapsburgs (named after VULTURES!) still stand but the Babenberger castles (the previous dynasty that perished in 1246) are all in ruins.
@Joseppi
Thankyou joseppi, for the reply. Intresting to get anther perspective
The brutality that is projected overseas, has its counterpart here at home. Much brutality is focused on immigrants, who are deemed expendable, transferable; and who are uprooted casually, whenever there’s a tremor in the political landscape.
Punishing Mexican migrants is always the occasion for classical appeals to the emotions. They are claimed to constitute a criminal class. We must believe that they represent an existential threat to sovereignty. Sure, they profit us greatly in good times, and are a terrible eyesore when times are tough. If they insinuate their way into citizenship; they will be fruitful and multiply, and take over the statehouse. And what becomes of our anemic power then?
I become discouraged more that irritated by the raft of emotional appeals. It is precisely because these people work too hard at punishing jobs that they are despised; they are hated because they are strong, not because they fill the ranks of a criminal class.
It is the vitality of new blood that terrifies the comfortable.
There is always an oppositional comfort that profits from the exploitation of those who are desperate for the hardest kinds of labor. And it always amazes me that a class of people who have had it comparatively easy, find it so facile a thing to exploit people, grind them literally into dust, use up their whole lives in dangerous, demeaning work. Then, like slavers, they are horrified that they can’t just snap their fingers and have the whole scene, the slaves and their offspring, simply vanish, out of sight and out of mind.
Arizona is not innocent of doing harm. Every yahoo in state office has piped up to offer more draconian proposals, to pile on top of the new power the state has already assumed. There have been proposals to cut off people’s utilities if they are suspected of being illegals. Acts of persecution are being contemplated without regard to constitutional protections. And it’s turned into a pissing contest in Arizona, to see which politician can outdo the others, in the line of cruelty.
The Hispanics are not going away in the Southwest. Centuries of history and profound entanglement with Mexico will not just go away with appeals to cultural hysteria. And the US will not be able to shrug off a problem that its own policy and greedy instincts have created.
The hard work ethic dies dramatically when one is no longer ‘illegal’. That is, naked fear drives this ‘work ethic’. And this is why illegals are preferred over citizens. Seriously. I consider this an evil thing.
And as I noted above, if you read very carefully, if agents remove illegals from jobs (they are illegal, after all!) they are NOT being deported which means, to keep alive, they MUST GO TO CRIMES.
I lived right in the middle of this sort of thing and thus have no rose tinted glasses, I know how things work in the real world. What else are they going to do???? You tell me.
If we legalize everyone, we end up with employers wanting this illegal semi-slave labor and the front door will again, be propped open and in will flood more illegals while the new-legals end up on welfare due to poor education.
That is, the cycle starts all over again. We have to have some control over this. Passive acceptance is stupid if we have a 10%+ unemployment rate!
Elaine is right. Without a job or any benefits or savings, food and water become paramount. Single, able-bodied men cannot hang out at charities for long, as they will be viewed as freeloaders.
Last night two men wearing hats and red bandanas over their faces forced their way into a home guns a-blazing. The home owners fired back as they fled. This happened three streets over from my house.
I remember the stark choices I and my Deaf friends faced: menial dishwashing jobs (if you were lucky and in good health), drug dealing (preferred), family dependant (no independance or life to speak of), begging (no longer acceptable outside of major cities), or school via VR (the path I chose, but an extremely difficult one, as VR tries to funnel you into a factory or dishwashing job with a regular and very small paycheck).
Drug lords liked using Deaf persons to do low-level dealing since the police could not be bothered to learn sign language. This led to a lot of addiction problems and then money problems for those who tried this.
I managed to become a potter/ceramic artist in spite of the system, but I had a lot of help from sympathetic VR beaurocrats. Those deaf friends of mine who left Kentucky are now fully employed, off of drugs and alcohol, married, and living decent lives compared to what was offered here. I almost left too.
Maybe this can help those who wonder why so many Mexicans come here. The choices in their homeland are so dire that anything is better than that. Why else would they risk death by heat, gun-happy border agents, or crooked smugglers?
As long as Mexico is a cauldron of murder and mayhem, more and more will flee here and make a living any way they can. This is your basic mass immigrant story.
DeVaul, this is a very shocking storey, i really had no idea this kind of thing went on. I mean, i realised drug dealing went on, but i never realised that deaf people would have to turn to it.
Sorry to display my total ignorance, but does america not have some form of disablity living alowance?
“Most of the time, the US chooses the sneakiest, most technological assassination machines to do the dirty work while our troops hide out thousands of miles away…”
That sounds just like the low opinion the line troops had of archers in the Iliad.
But the history of warfare is the history of killing at a distance – we’ve just moved on from bows and arrows, through firearms, to aircraft flying over Afghanistan and controlled by people in Missouri.
“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. ” _ George S. Patton